The blurb has landed

Ah, things are really rolling now. After the mysterious appearance of a listing for my next novel on Amazon recently, now a blurb has appeared in my email inbox.

It’s quite strange and in some ways depressing to see several years of work reduced to a blurb, but I think they did a good job of making it sound interesting. What do you think?

For Jeff Brennan, juggling multiple identities is nothing new. In his online life he has dozens of different personalities and switches easily between them. In his offline life, he shows different faces to different people: the caring grandson, the angry eco-protester, the bored IT consultant.

But when the beautiful Marie mistakes him for a famous blogger, the lines between his carefully segregated personas begin to blur. As the two of them start to form a life together, Jeff is gradually forced into more and more desperate measures to maintain the illusion he has accidentally created.

In a society where truth is a matter of perspective, identities become interchangeable. Caught up in his own web of lies, how much further can Jeff go? And even if he wanted to turn back, would he be able to?

I’ve also been told that a cover designer has been commissioned and sent a brief. Will post something up when I see it. By the way, isn’t “blurb” a candidate for Ugliest Word in the English Language? Sounds like someone regurgitating his breakfast.

Thanks – intriguing is the aim! Maybe the word reflects the discomfort writers have with reducing their cherished 250 pages down to a couple of paragraphs. It’s necessary, of course, to help readers decide whether the book is for them, but it’s quite difficult and always a bit dissatisfying – it feels like such a simplification, which of course it has to be.

Sounds brilliant, I’m intrigued as to how Jeff can keep the assumptions going. I agree about “blurb”. When I first learned it I was very young and remember telling my mother that this was the word for the summary on the back of books. She didn’t believe me and I could understand why, it sounds like a made-up word. So I thought over what my teacher had said and didn’t quite believe it again for a long time!

That’s true, Tom – one of the things I hate about e-books (on the Kindle, anyway) is how they always jump past the cover and the dedication and start you on the first page. It makes sense, I know, but I’m old-fashioned – I always scroll back to look at the cover and read through the preliminary stuff!

Blurb writing is definitely an art, and one that I’m not very good at. It does focus the mind, though. Someone recently asked me on Twitter what my first book was about, and it was really hard to explain it in 140 characters or less! Made me consider what was really important.

Hey Claire, it’s wonderful to hear from you again. It’s been a long time! Your WordPress blog was inactive for a long time and I thought you’d stopped blogging, so I’m happy to discover your new site. Look forward to catching up on all that you’ve been doing and reading 🙂

I try to avoid reading blurbs (terrible word, I agree with you) because they often give away events that happen rather far in the book. It’s like some American film trailers: once you’ve seen the trailer, you don’t need to watch the movie.

I hope for you that the cover of Virtual Love will be better than the first one of Love Virtually.

Oh no, I hadn’t heard of that book! Now I am depressed. The last thing I want is a title that everyone connects with another book. I bought it today and read it and, to my relief, it’s very different from mine, but still it’s bad news. Not that I blame the messenger of course!

IMO, with a title like Virtual Love, you have a risk to get a corny cover and attract the “wrong” readers. It might sound like a romance novel, attract romance readers and miss literary readers. Sorry if it sounds rude for your publisher, but I’ve seen enough of silly covers to mention it. (Especially UK covers)

I’m glad you liked it! Yes, the theme is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. It has been a long wait already – finished the book ages ago now! So am looking forward to seeing it published. Will post up the cover image when it comes back from the designer.